The present invention relates to geophysical prospecting and more particularly to a system and method for geophysical prospecting through measurement of earth tides.
For a number of years, people have had available an abundant supply of relatively inexpensive fossil energy in the form of oil and natural gas. However, the known sources or proven reserves of such fossil energy have not kept pace with the increasing demand, leading to critical short term shortages and less critical but still serious long term shortages.
While alternative sources of energy, such as nuclear energy or solar energy, are being explored it is not widely believed that such alternative sources will be available soon enough to avoid a severe international energy crisis.
The most feasible short term solution for the fossil fuel shortage is to find additional reserves of the fossil fuels. Various seismic techniques are used in efforts to locate certain kinds of subsurface formations using surface measurements. The nuclear, acoustic and electrical properties of such formations can all be studied through the use of measurements made at surface detectors.
The reason for making such measurements is to determine the most advantageous location for drilling an oil or gas well. Since the costs of drilling a well can be quite high, the geologist or other individual responsible for deciding whether to begin drilling needs to have as much information as possible about the subsurface formations in a region of interest before drilling to minimize the chances of a dry or nonproducing well.